Chapter 38
Icy dread ripped through my body, throwing all my senses into high alert. Brigid tensed beside me, and one of the Lower Army guards hovering nearby muttered shakily, “Gods unmade…”
I stared hard at Caiathos. His calm face was beginning to twitch. That godly light in his eyes was gone, but when I looked at his wounds more closely, I saw the telltale glimmer of gold once more.
“I’m going to need more information,” I told him. “Has he been holding you captive? How did you escape him?”
He stared at me for another beat, his gaze darting across my face, and then his body jerked violently, his expression fell to pieces, and he began to scream.
“He’s coming from the trees!” he cried, thrashing anew. “He’s coming from the sky! You’re not ready, you don’t understand!”
Suddenly, with a thunderous crash, angry orange light burst across the sky. We all looked up. My skin prickled from the air’s sudden volcanic charge.
Lightning slashed through the woodlands a few hundred yards beyond our perimeter.
Every single one of the trees exploded in a quick chain reaction, and a dozen sizzling rings of light opened among the ruins like fiery mouths.
The same thing was happening above the nearest canyon cliffs—lightning tearing holes in the sky.
Portals, I realized with horror. Like greenways, but anchored to the air instead of foliage.
And out of them poured Kilraith’s army.
A vanguard of avian chimaera cascaded out of the sky. From the destroyed woodlands hurtled a line of terrestrial ones—dozens of them, hundreds. Wave after wave, letting out a cacophony of bestial sound, all of them charging straight for us.
I threw the screaming Caiathos over my shoulder, ordered Freyda to stay with Brigid, to keep her safe, and then shouted at Brigid herself, “Tell them to reinforce the wards!”
With that, I launched into the air and flew up the lawn toward the house.
Our defenses surged into action; within seconds, the grounds teemed with officers shouting commands, soldiers scrambling for their weapons.
Something crashed behind me with a thunderous boom.
The entire shell of ward magic juddered, its light shifting rapidly between cool blue and seething orange.
I landed on the house’s front steps and looked back.
The chimaera were hurling themselves at the wards.
One wave crashed against the shield of light and immediately fell back, repelled and momentarily stunned, only for the next wave to attack right after them.
The wards would hold; they had to. The magic of so many Anointed beguilers and my mother couldn’t possibly fail just because a few beasts were pounding on it.
Kilraith would have to do better than that.
The problem was, I knew he would. But how, and when, and from where?
My sisters and I hadn’t even begun to dismantle the anchors, which suddenly seemed like the worst kind of arrogance.
We’d thought we had time, that Kilraith would obey the tidiness of our plan: first transfer Neave into Alastrina, then work on the anchors.
Too much complex magic happening at once, we’d thought, might endanger both procedures.
Now, it seemed, we had no choice but to risk it.
I raced into the house, soldiers streaming out on either side of me.
Mother hurried into the entrance hall, Father at her heels.
She’d been sheltering in the west wing behind even more layers of ward magic, conserving her energy.
Our plan was for her to remain in the house and from there extend her power across the grounds like a trawler’s net, boosting the strength and speed of as many soldiers as she could.
But now things had changed. I shoved Caiathos at her. The man was convulsing; his eyes shifted between dark and gold, human and god.
“Deal with him,” I snapped. “Calm him down, make him understand what’s happening, and help him get ahold of himself. I think his host body is unstable, but we’ll need him before the end of this.”
Mother stared at him in astonishment. “Brother…” she whispered, touching his face.
I couldn’t wait around to help them. I glanced at Father, saw that sentinel fire in his eyes. Much like mine, his body was clearly buzzing with the fever of battle.
He nodded fiercely at me. “I won’t let anything touch them.”
“And don’t let yourself get distracted. The battle outside—”
“Trust me, daughter—now that I’m back at your mother’s side, nothing in either world could tear me away from her.”
A sweet sentiment, I supposed, but it left a bitter taste in my mouth. The question of why he so consistently seemed to favor devotion to my mother over devotion to his daughters was one I couldn’t answer. I wasn’t sure I wanted to, or cared enough even to try.
“Lady Mara!”
I turned to see three librarians from Gareth’s team hurrying toward me. Each of them carried a padlocked iron box that hummed with protective spellwork.
The anchors.
My heart sank as I realized that this was my task now—not bolstering our defenses or standing by with my fellow Roses, ready to rip out the throats of any chimaera that might slither through the wards.
First I had to dismantle these anchors. Doing so was essential.
But my body itched to fight, and my heart longed for Gareth.
I glanced past the librarians at the shuttered east wing. “Are they making progress?”
“We can’t say, my lady,” one of the librarians answered.
I couldn’t remember her name; my battle-focused brain couldn’t spare the energy.
“There’s been no word from Professor Fontaine, and we don’t have clearance to enter the room.
But we’ve no reason to suspect that there’s a problem.
Everything’s been nice and quiet in that wing. ” She paused. “Until now, at least.”
I swallowed a sick feeling. Certainly Ankaret would be able to sense what was happening outside, even if no one else could. Would the battle distract her? Would the clash of magic nearby disrupt the delicate balance of Gareth’s procedure?
And would I have a chance to speak to him again before this was over?
I shook away those desolate thoughts as my sisters hurried over, Talan and Ryder armed and grim at their sides. Gemma’s eyes, which always showed exactly how she was feeling, were wide and wild with panic. But when she spoke, her voice was calm.
“Will destroying the anchors interfere with the transference?” she asked. “Is there any way we can wait a bit, or at least ask Gareth’s team what they suggest?”
“We shouldn’t interrupt them, my lady,” one of the librarians said urgently.
“Agreed,” Talan said, resolutely not looking at the box that contained the crown. “With all this chaos, any disruption might be disastrous.”
“And we can’t wait,” Farrin said quietly. She hadn’t spoken for days, conserving her voice for our practice sessions. “We don’t know how long this will take.”
“Or how well the wards will hold,” Ryder added darkly.
“They’ll hold,” I said at once. I headed for the stairs, refusing to look back at the east wing. I would have to trust Gareth; I did trust Gareth. “We have to begin now.”
As we hurried toward the stairs, we passed Lady Fontaine.
She stood near the wall, watching the activity in the entrance hall with wide eyes.
The sizzling crash of the chimaera’s onslaught outside shook the house.
The cobwebbed glass lamp on the table beside her rattled in its casing.
She looked a bit lost standing there in her outdated Upper Army uniform, and more than a little pathetic.
I felt her gaze on me as we passed but paid her no mind.
She had said nothing to me since the day of my arrival.
I’d hardly even seen the woman. Gareth’s anger must have truly shaken her.
Good, I thought. I hope all of this makes her realize how unimportant she is, and how utterly her drink and cruelty have ruined her.
I did not think of her again.